Your tips are very relevant to some conversations I am having with an org that partners with refugees in Iraq and Syria. In Bangladesh refugee camps, how do individuals access water during the dry season? What are they doing to maintain their production and conserve water resources? If they are paying for water, about how much are they willing to pay for water that goes into their garden? If using gray water, what sources are they receiving it from? What chemicals might be in the gray water due to soaps used, and how does that impact the plants?
I need to know more about your situation and what you would like to do.
I was talking about lining polywoven bags or feed bags or any other large bag that breaths with plastic so that the flow of air does not dry it out quickly.
There are lots of things you can do with plastic bottles related to gardening and I looked back through my conversation to try to find that which you are referencing and not sure. I use plastic bottles mostly as planting containers after cutting off the top and bottom and then when extracting the plant or tree I cut it open so the roots are damaged less. Otherwise the ribs make it difficult to push it through.
Dan Janzen South Sudan # +211925635255
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The refugee camp in Bangladesh is in a tropical climate so water is hardly ever an issue. We do work, however, in non-refugee situations in arid areas. The most important thing to teach is to keep the soil covered at all times. This will expend your growing season and effectively shorten the dry season. We recently had a situation in Haiti where there were no rains for over two months after the beans were planted and they still harvested a crop. The neighboring fields were uncovered and bare and their bean seeds didn’t produce plants.
Blessings,
Edward
Thank you, Edward! Mulching is so crucial and finding creative solutions for mulch that are not are typical ideas. Have you seen some creative mulch alternatives in Bangladesh?
Thank you, Dan. I will have to try a side-by-side of the poly woven bags with plastic lining and one without to observe this difference. That could be a simple solution to some evaporation challenges.
Thank you for the ideas!
Yes urine is awesome. Nutritional Needs are very important to consider. Moringa may not be highly calorie dense ( but you can make a high quality oil from the seeds) but it has an amazing range of nutrients including those very important for growing children such as iron vitamin a vitamin C , calcium and high-protein for a leaf vegetable. In fact in some countries the dried leaf matter is being researched as a substitute for
Malnutrition treatment powders In Africa.
This is a great initiative you’re doing. Sacks and unused containers around us can work wonders. You don’t need more space that what you have to use the containers and sacks. You only need to use the littlest of space around you.
There were several mentions of Sack Gardens in this post. The link below lists several references. Do network members have comments on these or links to additional resources?
I really like most of these ideas, Dan. The one that gives me pause is the use of glyphosate. From what I have read, the jury is mostly in about the dangers of incorporating it into food systems, or using it at all as part of our lives within Creation. That said, using it with the technique you mention would be about as zero impact as I could imagine, applying it very directly and in relatively small quantities.
Here is one article describing the decision to classify glyphosate are carcinogenic:
Widespread use of glyphosate has also been implicated as a significant contributor to kidney disease epidemics seen in rice and sugarcane production. Here is one article about that:
This relationship is harder for investigators to pull out because the harmful effects are probably caused by the glyphosate exposure in combination with other factors and chemical compounds, but the circumstantial evidence together with data from the basic chemistry is now convincing.
Again, applying limited amounts of glyphosate directly to the unwanted plants would be by far the lowest impact use of the product and probably not comparable to its massive use in corn, rice and sugarcane production.
Thank you again for your other ideas. I particularly appreciate the focus of in the ground composting, using high carbon material together with urine in trenches. I want to work on that as part of the new garden area we will be developing soon.
Thanks Mark. That was a very nice non-condescending response and very objective. I really appreciate that. You are the right type of person to take these difficult issues and try to parse out the right approach for a Christian or development worker. Some day I may change my mind when there is really good evidence but I don’t see people stopping flying on airplanes just because they are megadosed with cosmic rays which is a very high cancer risk factor, or anyone campaigning to stop Walmart selling cellophane-wrapped green potatoes that sit in the light for long periods of time and become high in alkaloids which is also associated with cancer or people worried about how malaria does so much damage to the body and contributes to cancer but yet we had to stop IRS programs because people were worried about the pesticides, or we don’t stop eating our barbequed meat even though there is an association with charcoal and cancer, people don’t put sunscreen on every time when they go out in the sun, they don’t stop eating high heated items such as roasted coffee beans, prune juice, bread crust and other high heated items which are often associated with carcinogenic activity. We like to pick on Roundup/glyphosate I think to the exclusion of a lot of other threats in our lives. Being overweight is a huge one. Not getting enough exercise. The link to glyphosate being harmful is very very pitifully weak from looking at the data but that is not my field. I asked my friend Rich Leep, an extension specialist at MSU about it a while back and he said there was little substance to the new claims and he knows a whole lot more about it than I do. Check out this study… This may be more comprehensive than some of the ones you reference or to be fair to you maybe it is not…
Mark you keep researching and keep communicating. My email is janzen200@yahoo.com. You will go far I am sure and try to extend what you do to others so they can learn, particularly the youth. There are more techniques I can teach you if you are interested such as tilting plants, tiered vegetable canopy considerations, grafting of fruit trees, intercropping tomatoes to reduce disease, and shade for homes, etc.